Frederick L. Wettering

The author spent July 1995-July 1996 with DOE's Counterintelligence Office, on detail from the CIA Operations Directorate. He details numerous problems that hampered security efforts at the Department but believes that "the belated ... reforms enacted in 1998 have gone a long way towards addressing the problems described."

The argument here is that CI "is not being effectively conducted" by U.S. CI agencies. This assessment is true for all three of the primary CI functions: "protecting secrets, frustrating attempts by foreign intelligence services to acquire those secrets, and catching Americans who spy for those foreign intelligence services."

The CIA's covert action capability "has almost completely disappeared.... Among the developments which have led to th[is] breakdown ... are public exposure, embarrassment, and legal and political curtailment; transfer of CA functions to overt organizations; and bureaucratic politics, within both the CIA and the rest of the U.S. government."

"In addition to the theft of personal [and business] secrets, the Internet has made it much easier to target and recruit potential spies and securely communicate with them. The Internet has become a real boon to the spying profession."